May 21, 2007

Ideology and Nanotechnology

There are many debates about nanotechnology; what it is, what it will make possible, and what its dangers might be. On one level these may seem to be very technical in nature. So a question about whether a Drexler style assembler is technically feasible can rapidly descend into details of surface chemistry, while issues about the possible toxicity of carbon nanotubes turn on the procedures for reliable toxicological screening.

But it’s at least arguable that the focus on the technical obscures the real causes of the arguments, which are actually based on clashes of ideology. We supposedly live in a non-ideological age, so what are the ideological divisions that underly debates about nanotechnology? I suggest, for a start, these four ideological positions, each of which implies a very different attitude towards nanotechnology.

Transhuman

Transglobal

Deep Green

Bright Green

Richard offers a short description of each ideological stance in his article. Of course, by condensing the range of human ideas into four rather discrete positions, this approach suffers from extreme oversimplification. But it is a good starting point for a valuable discussion of the relationship between nanotech policies and broader public policies.